Veritas blooms during expansion

Daily Newsletters

Sign up to ZDNet UK's daily newsletter.

A lot of people say Veritas really needs to move into new areas, and that the existing parts of the business won't grow fast enough to meet what everyone expects out of the company.
It's funny how everyone keeps saying there is no growth left in our core business. Yet look at Veritas as a company, and we've grown 25 percent over the last two years. We've gone from the end of 2000 at under $1.2bn in revenue to finishing 2002 at $1.5bn. Growth is a relative thing. We're not growing at the 50 to 60 percent clip we might have been at the heyday of the dot-com bubble, but we are still growing, and we are still successfully building our business out. You've talked about working with Cisco Systems and about bringing more of the management of storage into the networking arena. What's happening there?
We continue to work with Cisco, which has yet to bring to market a product that we are part of. They did introduce some storage capability in their switch technology, but the one that starts doing virtualisation in the switch has not yet come to market. Our foray into that market with Cisco will be highly dependent on how well Cisco does. It's much more in their hands than it is in mine. We're also embedding our technology in lots of different network-based switches. As storage and networks converge, we want to be there. Ultimately, I believe that customers will want to provision storage from the server and that they are going to want to provision some of their storage from the network. It's going to be relatively application dependent and relatively company dependent. One of your competitors, Legato Systems, is said to be on the block now. Is that a company whose technology you'd rather see in your hands or in the hands of your competitors?
The technology that Legato has, along with its market share position, is largely irrelevant. On a relevance basis, if you look at its market share, it's a small player in the market today...The fact that it's rumoured to be for sale shouldn't be a surprise...Veritas is pretty big, and we're not for sale. IBM is not interested in selling its business -- at least I have not heard that they are. And Computer Associates is not a company that somebody would buy just for backup. It has too broad of a business. (Legato) is the first one that is small and available in a market that already has three heavyweights. If it does get acquired, I don't think it will change its relevance in the market. One issue that has come up with all technology companies is the question of expensing options. If Veritas had had to do that last year, it would have resulted in a loss. There's a proposal from shareholders who want you to expense options.
We have a recommendation by our board to vote against the shareholder recommendation. There are really two reasons that recommendation is there. One is that accounting rules don't stipulate a consistent way for everyone to report the expensing of stock options. But on the particular proposal put in front of our shareholders, the real difficulty is that (shareholders) are asking us to expense options only for our executives. From what we can tell, there is no emerging rule or scenario under which anybody is asking a company to simply expense options for some subset of the options that are given. All of the proposed (accounting) rules are all or nothing. I'm relatively indifferent to it. If the accounting rules say we have to expense options, and they give us a consistent way to expense options such that my competitors expense them that way, and the industry expenses them that way, and all forms of business expense them that way -- then we're going to expense them. I do have the concerns of a chief executive, wondering whether the valuation to options would be accurate. That's the big question. I also fear that that information will hopelessly confuse shareholders. It would be inaccurate, in my view, to see Veritas last year as a company that lost money. In fact, if you look at Veritas last year, we generated roughly $100m-plus in cash every quarter. I just think that the rules are way too confusing.
More enterprise IT news in ZDNet UK's Tech Update Channel.

For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

  • Login

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Moley

@kevinmchapman. OK, I acknowledge that 'most' was a gratuitous throwaway comment as an afterthought and too presumptuous. As to proof, as you...

4 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Jack Schofield

@BrownieBoy > Works really well for thieves.... >> Nice attempt to deflect the argument by tossing in a point that's totally >> irrelevant, even...

5 hours ago by Jack Schofield on AMD Ultrathins to challenge Intel Ultrabooks
raskolnikof

fantastic that the so called piracy bills have been withdrawn. however, these anti-democracy supporters are still in the shadows so lets be alert...

6 hours ago by raskolnikof on SOPA, Protect IP support wavers in face of online protest
Tony Douglas

Please God no; teach them anything you like - thinking rationally, the uses and misuses of data, what data is and what it's not - but leave the...

8 hours ago by Tony Douglas via Facebook on Kids are the future. Teach ’em to code.
BrownieBoy

@Jack, > Works really well for thieves.... Nice attempt to deflect the argument by tossing in a point that's totally irrelevant, even it were...

23 hours ago by BrownieBoy on AMD Ultrathins to challenge Intel Ultrabooks
bootlegger

Make that 13 people now - I got refused today at Manchester airport. I thought I was up to date on this legislation - I knew of the EU ruling from...

1 day ago by bootlegger on UK airport body scans will not be opt out
tinycg

Don't forget to check out apps like GoodReader or SlideShark either, they're indispensible for people on the go in presentation situations. Best...

1 day ago by tinycg on Four top iPad apps for people on the move
TerryRK

Well it seems there is something a number of us agree on. Why is the Ubuntu Unity launcher so ugly? I thought perhaps it was something to do with...

1 day ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Freebies202

Duplicate comments are not made intentionally. Its very good to know that now you are keeping check on this problem because sometimes a commenter...

2 days ago by Freebies202 on Microsoft fixes blog comments, speeds up blogs with open source
kevinmchapman

"the very significant number of users" and "many (most) of us" - you have no evidence for these statements. It is a fact that most users are saying...

2 days ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Marg Menzies Harrison

Another grammar faux pas is the improper use of "you". When sitting down down in a restaurant, for example, I get cringe when the waitress...

2 days ago by Marg Menzies Harrison via Facebook on 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid
zdnetukuser

And NOW, folks, for Canonical's next trick... Kubuntu is late. Here's a pencil. Draw your own conclusions. cf.:...

2 days ago by zdnetukuser on Linux Minterface
Moley

@kevinmchapman. The discussion here reflects the very significant number of users who really do like the traditional menu system and who wish to...

2 days ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
kevinmchapman

Er, no... It is an efficient means of finding the application/file/setting you need in one place. The icons are a simply a fallback for when you...

2 days ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
TerryRK

Isn't the provision of a text based search an admission by the developers that the mass of icons approach does not work? I don't need to use a...

2 days ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
kevinmchapman

"Unity and GNOME 3 both abandon the old text-based cascading menus in favour of a graphical icon-driven system." Point truly missed. Both use a...

2 days ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
TerryRK

whs001 - Thank you, I'm glad you liked the article. I absolutely agree with you on your first point. I should perhaps have made it clearer that...

2 days ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Dennis Nilsson

If we allow corporate interest to dictate the way our government circumvents due process against foreign entities then we should accept the same...

2 days ago by Dennis Nilsson via Facebook on ACTA stumbles in Germany
GHar123

I totally dislike pirating of works, I fear that artists will be deterred from creating works if they think that they are going to get ripped off....

3 days ago by GHar123 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
JCB33

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

3 days ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany